Mainly a close reading of the unutterably subtle effects of the Song to Celia "Drink to me only with thine eyes."
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I’ll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope, that there
It could not withered be.
But thou thereon didst only breathe,
And sent’st it back to me;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.
What makes it a song? What makes it a story? What's their relation? A look at "So Beauty on the water stood," in this context:
So beauty on the waters stood,
When love had sever’d earth from flood.
So when he parted air from fire,
He did with concord all inspire.
And then a motion he them taught,
That elder than himself was thought,
Which thought was yet the child of earth,
For Love is elder than his birth.
And then a brief return to "On my first son":
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.
Seven years tho' wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage,
And if no other misery, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say, "Here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry."
For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.
Victorian Poetry 26: Last class: Housman after a touch of Yeats and a little Michael Field
Victorian Poetry 25: Jeff Nunokawa visits to discuss Wilde’s ”Ballad of Reading Gaol”
Victorian Poetry 24: The Rhymers’ Club: Fin de siècle poetry, towards Wilde and Yeats
Victorian Poetry 23: Amy Levy, Robert Bridges and... Kipling
Victorian Poetry 22: A bit more Stevenson, George R. Sims, and the amazing Alice Meynell
Victorian Poetry 21: Later Victorian Forms: Stevenson, Guggenberger, MacDonald
Victorian Poetry 20: George Eliot, Hardy, Hopkins
Victorian Poetry 19: Swinburne and Hopkins
Victorian Poetry 18: A touch of Fitzgerald and Hopkins; more on Meredith and Swinburne
Victorian Poetry 17: Some Meredith, then we begin The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam
Victorian Poetry 16: A little Patmore, then the rest of Goblin Market
Victorian Poetry 15: D.G. and C. Rossetti
Victorian Poetry 14: D.G. Rossetti and pre-Raphealitism
Victorian Poetry 13: Concluding class on Clough’s ”Amours de Voyage”
Victorian Poetry 12: Mainly Clough plus some narrative theory
Victorian Poetry 11: ”Long ago he was one of the singers” (Edward Lear) plus a little Clare
Victorian Poetry 10: ”The Hunting of the Snark” and some Clare
Victorian Poetry 9: ” ’Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’ ”
Victorian Poetry 8: More on R. Browning’s ”Development” and then mainly his”Thamuris Marching”
Victorian Poetry 7: more on Aurora Leigh and then some Robert Browning
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